Introduction

The earliest pioneers of the federation
movement, men such as Alfred Deakin and Samuel
Griffith, were generally self-described "liberals". The degree
of progressive
sentiment varied from colony to colony: social liberals were
prominent in Victoria and South
Australia, for instance. At any rate, Australia's parliamentary
institutions, especially at a national level, were brand-new, so it
was difficult for anyone to be labeled "conservative" in a
traditional sense. The two largest political parties, the Free Trade
Party and the Protectionist Party, could both
loosely be described as "liberal" in the terms of the time. They
were moderates with a strong belief in parliamentary institutions,
financially orthodox and attached to the British Empire, with a distaste for
radicalism. The third major political force was the trade union movement
represented by Australian Labor Party. The rise
in popularity of the Labor party began to become the major
pre-occupation of these two other parties.

In the early stages of the parliament, the Labor party engaged
in a partnership with the more radical Protectionists, but Labor's
wide-ranging policies for social reform met with only lukewarm
support from most Protectionists. Fear of socialism became widespread among the ranks
of the establishment, and as the question of tariffs was settled,
there was increasing pressure on the non-Labor parliamentary forces
to unite in opposition to Labor.

The result was the Fusion in 1909,
composed of Joseph
Cook's Anti-Socialist Party (formerly Free
Trade Party), and conservative Protectionists. The Fusion soon
began calling itself the Liberal Party,
proclaiming its adherence to classical liberalism. After
Deakin's departure, the fervent anti-socialist Joseph Cook became
leader of the party and it became the dominant right-wing force in Australian
politics.

The pattern of a non-Labor party defining itself as
liberal rather than conservative and deriving
support from a middle-class base continued to the
formation of the present-day Liberal Party, founded in
1945 and led initially by Sir Robert Menzies. Malcolm Fraser,
quoting from Menzies' memoir, Afternoon Light, described
the decision to call the party "Liberal" in these terms,

We chose the word 'Liberal' because we want to be a progressive
party, in no way conservative, in no way reactionary.[1]

However, the last Liberal Prime Minister, John Howard, is reported to have described
himself the most conservative leader the Liberal Party had ever
had.[2]

The Liberal Party is a broad church. You sometimes have to get
the builders in to put in the extra pew on both sides of the aisle
to make sure that everybody is accommodated. But it is a broad
church and we should never as members of the Liberal Party of
Australia lose sight of the fact that we are the trustees of two
great political traditions. We are, of course, the custodian of the
classical liberal tradition within our society, Australian Liberals
should revere the contribution of John Stuart Mill to political
thought. We are also the custodians of the conservative tradition
in our community. And if you look at the history of the Liberal
Party it is at its best when it balances and blends those two
traditions. Mill and Burke are interwoven into the history and the
practice and the experience of our political party.

Ideology

Liberalism in Australia has been notably lacking in a coherent
philosophical underpinning: it is strongly pragmatic, rather than
ideological, defined chiefly in antithesis to Labor. The
governments of Menzies, Fraser and Howard differ from each other
in both social and economic approaches.

Insofar as there is a unifying thread running through Australian
liberalism, it has been based on:

Opposition to major changes to the Australian Constitution. Once again, this
varies: the Democrats, and quite a few Liberal Party members,
support a republic.
The Liberals and Democrats have shown much more affection for the
Senate
than has Labor.

Again, all these currents are only apparent inasmuch as they are
a point of difference with Labor: advancing these ideas to deride
Labor as socialist, unpatriotic, or under the thrall of powerful
unions.

The
timeline

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From Protectionist Party and Free Trade Party to (Commonwealth)
Liberal Party